Mass spectrometers perform chemical detection, allowing the user to determine what substances are present in any given environment. Typically, mass spectrometers have a relatively large footprint with an ionizer, a mass analyzer and a detector. The instrument typically has several components that are fragile including the ionizer, such as a filament to generate electrons, roughing and turbo pumps and require a relatively high amount of power. Additionally, the mass spectrometers that use RF ion traps, called ion trap mass spectrometers, require high RF voltages to perform the mass analysis. The electronics foot print and power required to generate these high RF voltages further add to the complexity and power requirements of the MS infrastructure.
These requirements make it difficult to produce portable, low-power mass spectrometers. However, it is possible to design low-power and low-voltage miniature MS components, such as the ionizer, mass analyzer etc., to reduce the size and power requirements to enable miniaturized mass spectrometers.
Additionally, mass analysis of environments that generate complex spectra with many interfering peaks from the matrix can lead to incorrect identification resulting in false positives. To handle such convoluted mass spectra, typically a front end separation stage is used, such as gas chromatograph (GC) or liquid chromatograph (LC). This additional stage further increases the overall footprint of the chemical sensing platform, while also slowing the response time and increasing maintenance. To circumvent this problem, effective mass analysis scheme can be developed to enhance the confidence of chemical identification even with a complex matrix signal, thus relieving the requirements of the performance specifications of the separation stage, and in some cases eliminating the need for them.